The Heart of Darkness
by Teller1789
Summary: Ellison in Peru.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Some of the following images might be considered graphic.

"I tried to break the spell--the heavy, mute spell of the wilderness--that seemed to draw him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions. This alone, I was convinced, had driven him out to the edge of the forest, to the bush, towards the gleam of fires, the throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations; this alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations.

Heart of Darkness//Joseph Conrad

In Peru, Jim thought he'd lost his mind.

Their Huey had gone down. He doesn't remember much about that. As best he can figure, the insurgents found them first.

It's odd, though. He doesn't remember an explosion or anything spectacular like that.

He remembers a whistling noise, like fireworks, and then a flash of metal outside the 'copter doors. He remembers thinking, serenely:

'_That looks like a piece of the blade_.'

And it had been, most likely, because the next thing he remembers is lying on his side, still strapped into the Huey. It wasn't right though, because he wasn't…he wasn't on his side. The compartment was the thing that was tilted: a sharp angle to reality.


	2. Chapter 2

_Sight _

From there he could see out into the jungle: the door-less cabin opened out onto a violent green. Leaves and vines and branches tangled together, strangled around each other, each green thing trying to choke the life from its neighbor; fighting each other for the sunlight.

Jim watched the battle for days, maybe. It's hard to remember.

He does remember, distinctly, however when he _stopped_ looking at the green.


	3. Chapter 3

_Taste _

He felt it first, against his cheek: a drop of water from somewhere above his head. He felt too weak to turn and look, to see the water's source, to brush it from his face, so he let it drip and pool in the crease between his nose and cheek.

Jim made a game of it, counting the drops, guessing how many more it would take before the water ran down his face and into his mouth. He realized suddenly, that he was so incredibly _thirsty_.

The water felt oddly heavy against his skin; thick and viscous. He wondered, for a moment, if it might be sugar water. Jim remembered how his Mom used to put sugar water in the hummingbird feeders around their house.

He waited impatiently for it to drip down his face. He wondered if there were hummingbirds in Peru.

On the thirteenth drop, the pool of water between his cheek and nose quivered and then finally, finally, slid down his dimple and beaded on the jagged skin at his lips. Jim licked out and tasted with his tongue.

He jerked immediately at the first hint of bitter, metallic flavor. The sudden movement of his head caused the rest of the pool to run down his nose and into his mouth. Jim's tongue was suddenly covered in thick, gummy liquid. Salt mixed with iron against his taste buds and Jim reached up with his hand to clear the taste from his mouth. He pawed at his tongue and lips, nearly gagging with the effort of trying to un-taste the fluid that coated his face.

When he took his hand away, it was smeared with red.

Jim looked up into big, dead eyes. Hanging above him, still half-way strapped into his harness was Private Daniel E. Dinkins. He'd been sitting next to Jim before...

Private Dinkins was nineteen. He'd gone into the army so that they'd pay for his schooling. He had wanted to teach kindergarten.

Jim had stared at him. Dinkins left eye looked out, sightless. His right eye was gone. It'd been gouged out by a steel rod. Jim could see pink, mushy bits of Dinkins' brain spattered on the metal wall behind his head. He realized that the rod must have gone all the way through. Despite the severity of the wound, it hadn't bled much: just a slow drip from the mangled eyelid, off rust colored eyelashes, and down the steel rod to land gracefully into the crease of Jim's cheek.

'_Gross.' _Jim thought.


	4. Chapter 4

_Smell_

Gradually, Jim became aware of a smell. Smell was too polite of a word. It was _fucking_ rank.

Shit. He realized, literally shit. The odor came at him from everywhere, attacking his nose.

Looking around for the first time, Jim saw Them.

There were seven bodies, including Private Dinkins, in the cabin. Some were still strapped into their harnesses, others flopped on the floor. Some did both.

Each one had shit themselves before dying.

It was only natural: a loosening of the muscles, a complete and final relaxation of the body. And it smelled to High Heaven.

'_Holy shit._'

Jim thought, and laughed and laughed until he threw up and added another putrid smell to the ones already stewing in the cabin.


	5. Chapter 5

_Sound_

Jim doesn't remember how he got down and out. He does, however, have scars that don't match any particular event in his memory and so he puts them together and calls it even.

He does remember what They sounded like, though.

'Silent as the grave' is utter bullshit.

At the time, Jim thought he was hallucinating. Now, he knows that he really _did_ hear the way their bodies settled into death. Blood slowing and stopping, gases rising in the stomach, organs bloating, skin crinkling and wrinkling, flaking off to rub dry and hiss against the muddy grave like snake skin against the dead leaves on the jungle floor.

Jim heard all those things. He heard more.

When he put Them in the ground, he saved Dinkins for last. Jim felt it was the least he could do: let the kid feel the sun on his face that little bit longer, before Jim shoved him away forever.

Curious, Jim had put his head against Dinkins chest. Listened for…something.

Jim doesn't know and he's never told Sandburg but he's pretty sure he'd heard an echo.

Only the shadow of a sound, vicariously cast by the thumping of his heart, selfishly shining through its chamber while seven others lay dark and silent.


	6. Chapter 6

_Touch_

He hadn't meant to, but when he'd pulled away from Dinkins' chest, his hand had accidentally touched the kid's skin.

Since then, Jim's been in snowstorms and on stake-outs with a busted heater, and in one particularly exciting instance, locked in a freezer, but he's never felt anything as _cold_ as Dinkins' dead, musty skin.

Jim thinks the difference is that all those other things are supposed to be cold.

When Jim got in Dinkins' face and yelled at him during PT, he'd felt the kid's warm breath puff against his cheek.

When he'd playfully smacked Dinkins after cleaning the kid out during a poker game, he'd felt warm skin under his palm.

When he'd shook Dinkins' hand after the kid had been promoted, he'd felt warmth in his fingers.

When Jim buried Daniel Dinkins, he felt cold skin slide away from his touch and fall into the ground.

To rot in the heart of darkness.


End file.
